As a college student I used to sit in front of this painting long long stretches of time. I was not a believer in Jesus then, and it troubled me. If this was the crucified Jesus, why was he sitting up contemplating? If this was the resurrected Jesus why was he so hurt and full of sorrow? It indicated to me something about Jesus very different from what I heard from Christians- that Jesus was deeply sorrowful in life. That he was wounded before he was crucified. That it was deep pain over the condition of humanity that led him to suffer. And in his pain and suffering he was sharing and carrying ours. 600 years before his coming, Isaiah wrote about him as a man of sorrows, acquainted with griefs and as one who bore our griefs upon himself. Both Isaiah and the Psalmist describe him as one “rejected of men.” Whether you are passing through rejection, sorrow, sickness, injury, God in Christ not only meets you in it, but helps you to carry it. Today is Good Friday. The day we remember Jesus the Messiah’s death. Because of this whenever we ask where is God when we are suffering? the answer is “much closer”
